The Fantastically Hot Features of a GPS System
Man has always wandered about what is beyond what they know. Many travels and land discoveries were done because of this curiosity. Many lives though has been lost because of the uncertainties of their adventures and travels. Positioning and navigation are vital to so many activities and yet the process has always been unmanageable.
Luckily for us in this time and age is that we have new and innovative ways to help us and one of this is the GPS system.. GPS (global positioning system) is a complex technology but understanding. It can be easy if we take it one step at a time.
What is GPS?
Global Positioning System (GPS) is a universal navigation system formed from a constellation of 24 satellites and their ground stations. There are often more than 24 operational satellites as new ones are launched to substitute older satellites.
The satellite orbits repeatedly just about the same ground track (as the earth turns beneath them) once each day. The orbit altitude is such that the satellites repeat the same track and configuration over any point approximately each 24 hours (4 minutes earlier each day).
There are six orbital planes, equally spaced (60 degrees apart), and inclined at about fifty-five degrees with respect to the equatorial plan. The GPS system uses the “man-made” stars as reference points to calculate accurate positions to a matter of meters.
The GPS system consists of a network of satellites, signals, ground based hardware and software, and people which make possible the identification of one’s precise location on the Earth’s surface. The Global Positioning System is funded by and controlled by the U. S. Department of Defense (DOD). While there are many thousands of civil users of GPS world-wide, the system was designed for and is operated by the U. S. military.
Over the years all kinds of technologies tried to make things easier but everybody failed to do so due to some disadvantages. Finally, the U. S. Department of Defense realized that military had to have an extremely accurate form of world wide positioning. And luckily they had the kind of money it took to build something really good. The result is the Global Positioning System, a system that’s changed navigation totally.
The accurateness of a location measurement using the global positioning system depends on the technology and features of the GPS receiver. High-end, survey-grade GPS receivers can determine locations precise to within centimeters. But even the low-end, commercial handheld receivers, may be accurate to within fifteen meters. GPS receivers have been miniaturized to just a few included circuits and so are becoming very economical. And that makes the technology easy to get to almost everyone.
Originally, commercial global positioning system units were precise for only about 100 meters because the military scrambled the signal–a program called Selective Availability. In the year 2000, the U.S. government detached Selective Availability, improving the accuracy of even basic handheld units to within fifteen meters. Today, with additional information from ground based correction services such as WAAS or U.S. Coast Guard differential GPS beacons, accuracy can be improved vividly.
A system of ground based reference station called the WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation Service) located across the United States. This station corrects them for inaccuracies caused by clock drift and by the atmosphere, and then broadcast this correct signal from a stationary satellite over the equator and receives global positioning system signals. GPS receiver prepared with the WAAS technology, plus lots of offered by GPS service providers, can receive and understand this corrective signal.
Now a days GPS is searching its way into vehicles like cars, boats, planes, construction equipment, movie making gear, farm machinery, and even laptop computers.
In next to no time, GPS will become nearly as basic as the telephones.
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The Basics of GPS: It’s More Than Just An Electronic Device
Whenever we hear the term “GPS”, what would instantly come to our minds is a digital device with maps and other features that tells us our exact location on this planet. But do you know that such a device is just one part of GPS? The device is called a GPS receiver, and while it is indeed an important GPS device, it is just a part of a very large and complex system that allows us to measure our exact location on earth.
The three-lettered term “GPS” stands for Global Positioning System. It is a satellite based navigation system that has the ability to measure an object’s precise location on earth. The system was developed by the United States’ Department of Defense (DOD) and was officially called in the US military as the NAVSTAR GPR (Navigation Signal Timing and Ranging Global Positioning System). It was intended to be used for military operations only but has been opened for civilian use since the 1980s.
The Global Positioning System is a very huge and complex system that can be divided into three segments: space, control, and user. The “space” segment of the GPS refers to its network of satellites that transmit the signals used for location identification. The “control” segment, on the other hand, refers to the various stations on earth that maintain and control the system. The “user” segment refers to the GPS receivers—the actual unit that we often mistake as the system.
SPACE
The “space” segment of the GPS is a constellation of 27 satellites that orbits the earth at some 12,000 miles above its surface. 24 of these satellites are in operation while the other 3 are on “standby” mode and will be used in case one fails. Each of the satellites orbits the earth twice in less than 24 hours, traveling at a speed of approximately 7,000 miles per hour.
Each of the satellite used in the GPS constellation weighs about 3,000 to 4,000 pounds. All of these satellites are solar-powered, although all have backup batteries onboard to be used in the absence of solar power (i.e., solar eclipse). Small rocket boosters are also used to keep the satellites flying on the correct path.
The signals being transmitted by the GPS satellites are low powered radio signals. These signals contain three different bits of information—a pseudorandom code, ephemeris data, and almanac data—that are deciphered by the GPS receiver to obtain a precise measure of its location. The pseudorandom code tells the receiver which satellite is transmitting the signal while the ephemeris data provides information about the satellite’s position. The almanac data, on the other hand, contains information like the status of the satellite, current date and time.
CONTROL
The “control” segment of the GPS refers to the various ground stations run by the US Department of Defense that controls various aspects of the system. In particular, these stations monitors the flight of the GPS satellites, synchronizes the satellite’s onboard atomic clocks, and uploads the data to be transmitted by the satellites.
USER
The “user” segment of the GPS refers to the GPS receivers, whether they are used for military or civilian purposes. The GPS receiver is basically an electronic device that picks up the signal transmitted by the satellites and uses the information on those signals to figure out its precise location. Now that sounds simple! In reality, however, this function is a lot more complex.
The GPS receiver actually needs two things for it to figure out its location. First, it needs information about the location of at least three GPS satellites. Then, it would need to measure the distance between it and each of the three GPS satellites. The first information can be deciphered from the signal transmitted by the satellites while the second can be obtained by measuring the speed at which the signal was received.
ALL IN ONE SYSTEM
Combining the space, control, and user segments, we have a Global Positioning System that can tell us about our precise location here on earth.
You see, the GPS is not just the GPS receiver alone. It is a very big system, and a very complex one at that. But because every other part of the system is well maintained by the Department of Defense, we will never have to worry about those parts. All we have to do is to secure a GPS receiver and in an instant, we’ll receive information about our current location and other things that the receiver may want us to know.
S. Stammberger is the owner of GPS
Navigation Systems. On her website you can find information on everything related to GPS.
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